North Korea is a country where everyone is thought to worship a power-crazed
dictator, where disputes with neighboring South Korea frequently break out into
violence, where nuclear bombs are detonated with alarming regularity, and
where most people are assumed to be on the verge of starvation. But is this an
accurate view of daily life in North Korea today? Read this book to find out.
In seven fascinating chapters the authors explore what life is really like for
ordinary North Koreans. They tap a broad variety of sources—from interviews
with members of Pyongyang’s ruling elite to defectors, diplomats, NGOs and
cross-border traders, as well as written accounts in English, Korean and
Chinese–to bring together a radically different view of North Korean society
today. These sources reveal that in North Korea, money can buy more or less
anything, and ordinary people, poor and rich alike, regularly enjoy K-pop music,
South Korean TV dramas, skinny jeans and even Chinese and American films
which are smuggled into the country and sold on micro SF cards, DVDs and USB
sticks by a network of wheelers and dealers who use a thriving black market to
survive.
Such snippets of information show that North Korea society in undergoing rapid
and dynamic changes. Just as the 1950-53 Korean War created a generation of
South Korean overachievers, the authors believe the mid-1990s famines in North
Korea created important social and economic transformations that will eventually
spur North Korea and its people to greater achievements.